Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday's With Michael - July 22 - Meet Me At The Fair!

Michael and I went to the County Fair - it was a beautiful day. We had a lot of fun checking out the barns of livestock and other things like floral displays, antiques, home economics items. We rode some rides but Michael couldn't go on a lot of the "bigger" rides but it was still fun!

We went the first day of the fair so a lot of animals weren't there yet.
I thought this little calf was pretty cute.



Goats are a funny - and curious!


Do you have food?


I want to eat your hat!



Michael had fun on some of the kiddie rides.



In addition to the rides, we strolled through the other buildings and I especially liked the antique area. Here's an old fire truck. I played around with Picasa for this photo.



Here is the original photo in living color.



A lovely display of old cameras.


I Love Lucy (and Ethel too). This is a cool cookie jar!

Finally, how would you have liked to wash your clothes in this contraption? Happy Home Steam Washer? Happy? I don't think so. Makes you very thankful for all of our modern conveniences.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Hello My Baby! Hello My Honey!



We went frog catchin' this evening and look what we got! He/she is pretty cute (if you can call a frog cute) actually.

We have a pond behind the house with tons of frogs in it. This one was making weird noises at first in the net. Then we put it in a minnow bucket with some water and lettuce. When we'd open the lid, it kept jumping out and did Michael ever have fun running after it!



Being a product of the 60's and raised on Looney Tunes, I have a somewhat warped sense of humor. I kept waiting for Mr./Mrs. Frog to belt out a little rag time like his/her's famous cousin...Michigan J. Frog!



Let me hear you now...

Hello, my baby!
Hello, my honey!
Hello, my ragtime gal!

Send me a kiss by wire.
Baby, my heart's on fire!

If you refuse me,
Honey, you loose me.
Then you'll be left alone.

Oh baby, telephone
And tell me I'm
Your own!



Everybody's doing the Michigan Rag
Everybody likes the Michigan Rag

Every Mame and Jane and Ruth
From Weehauken to Duluth

Slide, ride, glide the Michigan
Stomp, romp, pomp the Michigan
Jump, hump, pump the Michigan Rag

That love-d rag!!

We let the frog go back in the pond. He seemed to hang out for a little while then he jumped in and swam away.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Show and Tell Friday

Happy Friday, Everyone! It's Christmas in July and I want to show you a few of the Christmas pins that I've been collecting recently. I was at the monthly Antique Show last Sunday and found 3 new/old ones. I only got a few because I spent too much on some other treasures that I'll show you next week.

This Holly Pin was my Mom's.



Isn't this Rudolph pin adorable?


So is this little deer


I absolutely adore this Candlestick pin.



Here's a darling Snowman pin. I don't think it's too old but I like it anyway.



Here is the whole kit and caboodle, including my Christopher Radko charm bracelet. Oh, this is getting me in the Christmas mood!



Have a fabulous weekend. Thank you once again, Kelli for hosting. Visit Kelli's Place Kelli's Place

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Goodbye, Old Friend



They are demolishing another landmark in Detroit. Tiger Stadium. Oh, the memories of that wonderful, magical ballpark.

I remember my first game in Tiger Stadium when I was six years old. We sat in the upper deck in right field. I remember the taste of the red hots in steamed buns and the taste of flat Pepsi, diluted from the ice that had melted.

In 1968, the Tigers were in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. They brought in T.V.'s in our class room so we could to watch the games. They played the series games during the day back then. Al Kaline, Mickey Lolich, Denny McLain, Stormin' Norman Cash, Bill Freeman. Go get 'em, Tigers!

My family took me to a game for my 16th birthday in 1976. We had a wonderful dinner at Carl's Chop House and then went to the game. That night, a quirky new pitcher was in the game that night - Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. Remember him? He used to talk to the ball. He won 19 games and the AL Rookie of The Year award. He was quite the sensation, even had an oldies song dusted off for him..."The Bird, Bird, Bird, Bird is the word". It was a glorious summer.

I went to a lot of games through the years until I moved to Chicago. Opening Day in 1984 - it was so darn cold but we stayed the whole game. That year, the Tigers went all the way and eventually won the World Series. My older brother and I went to every home playoff and final series games. Back then, you could mail-in for playoff tickets. We sent in SASE (self addressed stamped envelopes) along with a money order for however many tickets we wanted for each game. We even had addressed some of the SASE's to my dog - she even got them!

The characters at Tiger Stadium were quite entertaining. I remember a guy selling pretzels. He would shout, "Hot Pretzels....HOOOOOT PREZELLLLS" One guy would juggle hot dogs. When you got one with mustard, they would slop on the mustard with a wooden thing that looked like a giant tongue depressor.

I don't get back to Detroit very often but hope to this Fall. It will be hard to drive by the corner of Michigan and Trumbull and see the remains of the grand old stadium.

Friday, July 11, 2008

"The Thunder Is Taking Pictures"



We've had terrific storms come through this summer - more so than usual. We just made it home yesterday evening before this one hit. I am so fascinated by storms, they really don't frighten me much.

Michael was outside when I snapped this picture, later while it was still storming - loud thunder and lightning, he said "Momma, the thunder is taking pictures". It took me a minute to figure out that he meant lightning when he said pictures. Kind of like my flash going off when I took this picture. He's pretty observant, wouldn't you say?

Show and Tell Friday - More Bunnies!

I guess you could say that I have a fetish for Bunnies! It all started when I was about 8. My parents got us a New Zeeland White Rabbit for Easter. My younger brother named her Mrs. Wings. Well, she was "with bunnies" and had a litter of adorable babies - I was in love.

When I was pregnant with Michael, I wanted to do his nursery in a Peter Rabbit theme. Ron surprised me with this adorable Peter Rabbit Lamp.



A friend from work gave me this collection of Beatrix Potter stories - Michael loves them and we read one just about every night. I think his favorite is the Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck.



When Michael was born, a dear friend's mother gave us this adorable Peter Rabbit set - dish, bowl and cup.



I always loved Bunnies, and was blessed to have this little cutie in my/our lives. This is CocoBunny. I had her for almost 9 years. These photos are of her when I just brought her home. She was found on the "mean streets" of Chicago, we think someone got her for Easter and then let her go. A friend at work found her and was going to take her to a pet shop...once I caught sight of those huge, floppy ears, I was hooked. I took her home in a box on the Metra Train! She was a great bunny. I'll honor her with her own post later. Have a great Friday and weekend everyone!





My thanks again to Kelli at Kelli's Place Kelli's House
for hosting Friday's Show and Tell. Please visit her page and check out all of the other Show and Tell's posted.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Our New Patio!

We finally decided what we wanted to do for a patio in the backyard. We contracted out the work to have a Stamped Concrete patio put it. It looks like it's flagstone but it's one slab of concrete and they then "stamp" a design in it to make it look like individual pieces. We wanted one slab to keep the maintenance down and to keep weeds and grass from growing in between.





I kept going back and forth between wicker and wrought iron. I love the wrought iron look but everything we saw just seemed too large for the patio. We settled for this lovely wicker set with a Hawaii-ish pattern on the cushions. Since Hawaii is my paradise, I have a lot of things to spruce it up a bit!


The grass is growing around the edge quite nicely. I can't wait to landscape it a bit!

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Happy Birthday, America!

God Bless America
Land That I Love
Stand Beside Her
And Guide Her
Thru the Night
With the Light
From Above

From the Mountains
To the Prairies
To the Ocean's
White with Foam

God Bless America
My Home Sweet Home

God Bless America, My Home Sweet Home

Have a wonderful, safe and Happy 4th of July everyone,

Let Freedom Ring!